The retreat of High Inquisitor Keith Mercer’s command crawler was neither graceful nor orderly.
With one of his multi-million-credit Diamond-Rank Cerberus war-hounds lying dead in the sulfur sludge and the ground-shaking shriek of the awakened Broodmother tearing through the clouds from the northwest, Mercer chose the cold survival calculus of an aristocrat. The massive crawler spun on its rear caterpillar tracks, throwing up thirty-foot rooster tails of black mire as it reversed back down the raised stone road, its diesel turbines screaming at redline.
The leftover Cerberus hound, dragging its wounded rear flank, backed away through the reeds with its three heads snapping defensively at the shadows before turning and galloping after the command rig.
Arthur Vance didn’t order a pursuit.
He stood in the waist-deep water of the canal breach, his hand resting on the warm, rain-slick dark rock of Titus’s upper scute. He watched the yellow headlights of the military taskforce vanish into the chemical smog.
“Hold positions,” Arthur spoke into his throat-mic, his voice cutting through the fight-or-flight rush-fueled chatter of the nomad scouts on the low roof wall. “Kira, maintain overwatch from the crane tower. Toby, don’t advance the wagons. We have a living storm coming from the north.”
